


a sky underground

by mimesere



Series: an unbreakable house [3]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Past Drug Use, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, flagrant misuse of pathfinder spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimesere/pseuds/mimesere
Summary: There’s a curse, the priest of Dionysus said and Tjelvar felt his heart sink in his chest even as Ed opened his mouth to say, “What do I need to do?”
Relationships: Edward Keystone & Tjelvar Storsnasson
Series: an unbreakable house [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125800
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18
Collections: EdTjelvar Week 2021





	a sky underground

**Author's Note:**

> For EdTjelvar Week, day 4: Gods

Tjelvar wasn’t sure if Ed’s cavalier attitude toward his own well-being was a function of being a paladin or simply a function of Ed being himself, if the two things could be separated at all. And it wasn’t that Ed didn’t care; he did, obviously, enough to pull Tjelvar behind him as they ran through a ravine ahead of some awful gray thing with a cracked open chest that made Tjelvar’s head hurt to look at or to drag them both into the cold dark shelter of a cave and to sit with Tjelvar held close, Ed’s hand over his mouth to muffle the sounds Tjelvar couldn’t stop making until the induced panic faded. 

Where things got tricky were those occasions when what Ed thought of as his duty collided headlong with what Ed thought of as a risk only to himself. If there was evil, Ed would fight it. If someone was in danger, he’d do his best to get them out of it. He didn’t really factor himself into the equation at all.

That worry he left to Tjelvar, who’d spent more time than he cared to think about digging Ed out of piles of rocks that had fallen on his thankfully hard and blessed head or watching him wade into fights everyone else had sensibly run from. 

There’s a curse, the priest of Dionysus said and Tjelvar felt his heart sink in his chest even as Ed opened his mouth to say, “What do I need to do?”

Tjelvar sighed. Uncharitably, uselessly, he thought: Shut up. Ask questions. _Think_. Say no.

“Find the center of all this,” the priest said. “Remove the curse. The first part I can help with. The rest is up to you and Apollo.”

Ed nodded as if that sounded anything like a reasonable plan. “Yeah, all right.”

And that had mostly been that. They’d gone back and forth a bit about honor and good intentions, Tjelvar had made his doubts about all of that as plain as possible without insulting anyone, the priest had brought up trusting Apollo and of course Ed did. Even Tjelvar had admitted he trusted Apollo enough to believe that he wouldn’t just throw away a useful tool.

The priest looked at him intently then and Tjelvar fought the urge to fold his arms across his chest, holding himself still and ready to move if he needed to. He tried to communicate his disdain for the meddling of gods by glaring -- Apollo was more than enough to be getting on with and acceptable only as the price he paid for keeping Ed’s steadfast affection -- but must have missed the mark when they tried to comfort him instead. 

“I’m going to bring him closer to his god,” they said, as if that was something Tjelvar wanted at all. Ed was close enough to Apollo. Getting closer to gods hadn’t gone well for anyone who’d done it. “Apollo’s not the sort to leave curses laying around.”

It was on the tip of Tjelvar’s tongue to say that Apollo obviously _did_ just leave curses laying around if they were being tasked with breaking one. Dionysus wasn’t contributing much in the way of solutions either. They’d thrown power at people and left them to sort out the mess.

The priest’s eyes were sharp and they tilted their head at him like they could see straight into his mind and every thought that was crossing it. Maybe they could. Tjelvar didn’t care.

Ed shifted, moving himself until he was sat between Tjelvar and the priest. Ed was many things, but subtle was not one of them. “What do I do?” he asked again and patted Tjelvar on the leg.

Tjelvar could count the number of people whose good opinion mattered to him on one hand with fingers left over. Ed believed that Tjelvar was a better person than he’d ever really been and had shared that belief like a map when all the signposts and landmarks of himself had been scoured away. 

Ed mattered. And Ed wanted to pursue this foolishness, which meant that Tjelvar followed along behind and did his best to make sure they survived it.

Tjelvar sighed and Ed smiled at him.

The priest got to their knees. “Make yourself comfortable,” they said and Ed nodded. Tjelvar thought he’d just lie down on the leaf-strewn ground but he leaned back against Tjelvar instead, no hesitation or doubt at all, and Tjelvar braced himself against Ed’s weight. The priest knelt over Ed, close enough that Tjelvar could smell the wine and honey. They put two fingers against Ed’s forehead. “Ready?”

“Is this going to hurt?” Ed asked. He sounded curious only, no fear at the prospect of pain clouding his face. Tjelvar felt it instead, a tight, hard ball of worry in his chest. 

The priest shook their head. “The opposite. It helps if you don’t fight it.” They said something -- Greek, Tjelvar thought -- and Ed’s body arched up taut and shuddering before Tjelvar thought to hold on.

“What--” Tjelvar started to ask before the edges of whatever the priest had done caught him up too.

He held on to Ed. That was the important part. 

The rest of it was awful. 

It didn’t hurt.

He felt all at once wine drunk and utterly utterly sated, the giddy exhaustion at having found and navigated another site, the tight ratcheting spiral of a really good fucking, of being fucked, the slow unraveling of his thoughts under a fog of hashish, the aurora the last time he’d seen it too young to know they were leaving for good, that first moment of acceptance home welcome that followed the roots through his body--

The iron taste of blood burst through, clearing his head enough for Tjelvar to grab the ragged edges of his awareness and draw them tight around himself. He was curled over Ed’s body, fingers wrapped around the edge of his breastplate and holding on tightly enough that his fingers ached with it.

He’d bitten his lip hard. It throbbed dully and blood smeared over the back of his hand when he wiped it away, dark against the gray of his skin. 

The priest wrung their hands, unsure for the first time. They reached out, tentative, and Tjelvar gritted out, “Don’t.”

“Are you all right?” they asked. “I didn’t--you weren’t--I didn’t mean to get you with that.”

“No,” he said and turned his attention to Ed. He’d relaxed while Tjelvar had been otherwise occupied, though he was still trembling. In a different context, a more pleasant and mutually induced one, that might have been all right. Tjelvar settled back on his heels and pulled Ed up, propping him more comfortably against Tjelvar’s chest.

Ed’s eyes were wet with what Tjelvar hoped were tears and he was reaching for something to wipe them away when Ed drew in a sharp breath and his eyes flew open. Ed blinked up at Tjelvar and Tjelvar wasn’t entirely sure Ed saw him at all.

That...didn’t bear thinking about. 

Ed made a confused noise and his arm moved, uncoordinated and jerky. Tjelvar caught his hand and held it. Ed had a tendency to hit first and apologize after if he woke up confused.

“He’s got a bit to go,” the priest said before Ed closed his eyes again.

A hundred things went through Tjelvar’s mind. The first, and of course the most pointless of them, was how unfair it felt to know the shape and weight of Edward’s body against his own - to know it more than once! - and to have the memory of it shot through with fear and desperation instead of simple want. 

The second and more important: “What is _happening _?”__

__The priest shook their head, eyes fixed firmly on Edward’s face. “He’s getting closer to his god.”_ _

__“Thank you, that’s a terribly useful answer.”_ _

__They looked at him measuringly, then down at where his arm wrapped around Ed’s chest. An expression crossed their face that Tjelvar didn’t care to decipher. “Are you a religious person, Mr. Stornsnasson?”_ _

__That they knew his name shouldn’t have struck him so; they’d known Ed’s name too despite the lack of introduction, formal or otherwise._ _

__He exhaled sharply. “No. I am--no.”_ _

__“It’s...difficult to talk to the gods directly. We get small pieces of them, the parts we can hold in ourselves without getting lost. Even people like us.” They gestured between themselves and Ed. “They’re too big and they don’t...they can’t see us properly. Not really. We’re too small. If we want to talk to them, we have to make room.”_ _

__Tjelvar’s mouth went dry and there was a sound in his ears like water rushing around him, icy and swollen with snowmelt._ _

__“And so all this,” they said. “Some people use pain to do it, some people use wine. Some people dance. Sex is a popular one in some sects. Anything that takes you out of yourself enough for a god to rush in.”_ _

__“Like a river,” Tjelvar said. It sounded distant to his own ears, faint past the rasp of his own breathing. He looked down at Ed and thought he might have been glowing faintly, not like a spell or a torch but like a coming dawn, lighting everything so gradually that it was morning before anyone quite realized that it had happened. “I’m familiar.” The words slipped out, bitter and jagged._ _

__“Ah,” they said and Tjelvar desperately wished he could turn back the last few moments. Then, gently, voice rich with something that felt like pity, they said, “It’s not supposed to be like that. It’s supposed to be a joy.”_ _

__There _had_ been joy. A single moment when he’d felt accepted and known, measured to the last inch and wanted anyway. _ _

__And then it had gone away and taken most of him with it. His grip on Ed’s hand tightened._ _

__“It was the single worst experience of my life,” he said. “I would do almost anything to make sure it never happened again.”_ _

__Except that he had. Ed lay between them like an accusation._ _

__They lapsed into uneasy silence, the brightness around Ed blooming around them. At least if this had to happen, it looked to be happening successfully._ _

__And then it ended. Ed gasped and his whole body jerked as if he was waking from a dream of falling._ _

__Tjelvar tightened his arms around Ed and murmured into his ear, “Breathe, Eddie, I have you.”_ _

__“Here,” the priest said, “I don’t think he can see.” They cupped Ed’s face in their hand carefully, trying to steady him even as Ed pulled back hard, turning his head away and pressing against Tjelvar’s chest._ _

__“Don’t,” Tjelvar snapped and the priest drew back again, lips pressed together and frowning. They didn’t matter; the tension running out of Ed did. Tjelvar held on, breathing slowly and regularly at a pace he’d seen Ed use when he meditated. Ed started to match him and Tjelvar squeezed him again. “Good. Exactly right.”_ _

__“Is he all right?” the priest asked._ _

__“M’fine,” Ed mumbled. He seemed content enough to stay where he was and Tjelvar was disinclined to argue about it. Ed opened his eyes carefully, blinking away the tears in them._ _

__The priest started to reach out again and stopped at Tjelvar’s glare. “May I?” they asked Ed and where Tjelvar would have told them to piss off, Ed only nodded. The priest took a fold of their robe and cleaned Ed’s face carefully. “There now. I can heal you if you like. I wasn’t expecting that to take you so hard.”_ _

__Ed was still shaking but nodded again and Tjelvar had to bite back a frustrated, “Dammit, Eddie!” They laid a hand on his head, murmuring in Greek again, and while this spell was undoubtedly gentler than the last, Ed’s low shuddering breath suggested it was in the same family of pleasant._ _

__Ed sat up after a moment and Tjelvar let him go, watching him get carefully to his feet and stretch. The knot of worry in Tjelvar’s chest started to ease and he had to look away for a moment as the tension of the last few...minutes? Only that? passed. He became aware of the damp ground under his knees and the ache in his hands from a combination of holding on too tightly and where the cold had settled in._ _

__When he looked again, Ed had his hand out, ready to pull Tjelvar up._ _

__Tjelvar let him, abruptly exhausted. And when he was back up on his feet, Ed utterly failed to step back, standing close enough that it should have felt awkward._ _

__It didn’t._ _

__It was always a surprise to realize how much of a height they were. Ed was broader and more solid and beautiful besides, taking up more space to the eye than he did in reality, but he met Tjelvar’s eyes steadily and neither of them had to look up to do it._ _

__“Are you all right?” Tjelvar asked._ _

__Ed thought about it. He always did when Tjelvar asked. “I don’t know,” he said finally. It was a more careful answer than he usually bothered with._ _

__“Fair enough, I suppose.” Tjelvar studied him. He looked like Ed and acted like Ed. He had the same furrow between his brows that Ed got when he’d given an answer that he wasn’t sure Tjelvar would like._ _

__He hadn’t stopped glowing._ _

__It was an irrationally unwelcome reminder that there were other claims on Ed, longer standing and infinitely more powerful than his own. But it also went a long way toward convincing Tjelvar that Ed was as fine as he was going to be for the moment. The gods liked their champions._ _

__“Some sleep will help,” he said and Ed smiled at him the way he always had, as if he couldn’t think of better company._ _

__Apollo could keep his champion. Tjelvar would keep Ed and do his best to make sure that was enough._ _

**Author's Note:**

> me: oh ho ho waves of ecstasy sounds like a great time!  
> also me: but what if I took ecstasy very very literally
> 
> This is technically gen but please know that Tjelvar is like two seconds from understanding he wants to kiss Ed on the mouth with intent.


End file.
